IIIF: Linked Open Data

At the METAscripta website users will be able to search for Vatican manuscripts by BAV Shelfmark as well as by 1) Century, 2) Country, and 3) Language to discover new manuscripts in their areas of interest. Built with IIIF technology, the website will enable users to view JPEGS of manuscript in the Mirador viewer, contribute new metadata about the manuscript, and exchange information with other collaborators. A PDF file of the complete manuscript will also be available for download, and links will be provided to catalogs and research tools at the BAV and the VFL.

DigiVatLib, the website of the Vatican Library's manuscript digitization project.

The Vatican Library has its own digitization project, Digita Vaticana, with 7,557 digitized manuscripts available on its website to date. The DigiVatLib website also creates access to Vatican manuscripts in a IIIF digital environment. Retrieval is primarily by BAV shelfmark, however, with little descriptive metadata available for discovery of new works. METAscripta will create IIIF manifests so that the Vatican Library can harvest metadata to help support the descriptive cataloging of the BAV collection of pre-modern manuscripts. The complementary projects reflect the long history of cooperation between the Vatican Film Library and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

The versatile Mirador viewer will not only enable viewers to study individual manuscripts but also compare different manuscripts, parts of the same manuscript, or combine with other applications, including DigiVatLib. Please note that the digitized manuscripts posted online by the Vatican Library are protected by copyright and digital watermarks. JPEGs can be downloaded for personal study but require permisssion for public reuse. METAscripta, however, applies CC0 Creative Commons licensing to permit the download and reuse of digitized VFL microfilms for any purpose. Thus METAscripta will encourage users to explore new contexts for Vatican manuscripts through interactive research, scholarship, and creativity.